Monday, September 25, 2023

I am not paying this invoice. I am disregarding it, becuase....

 I am not paying this invoice because MICROSOFT has not provided me with a satisfactory way to access my account since June of this year despite my various attempts. The whole problem arose out of my identity being stolen and its consequences. These are documented in these links.

Hodentek: Identity theft and two-factor authentication (or Two-factor HELL)

HodentekHelp: Is there a workaround for the two-factor verification problem?

HodentekHelp: Identity theft and two-factor authentication (or Two-factor HELL)--Part 2

Here is an invoice that Microsoft emailed to me. I can reply to this email but it does not reach Microsoft.

I also have a bunch of emails that either do not reach Microsoft or it does not care to reply. 

If I choose to see my invoice, I get this screen,


This is my old phone number which was changed when my identity was stolen. The More information is just a circular reference.



Wednesday, August 3, 2022

Storing and Processing Big Data with SQL Server

  Here is a reasonable article comparing SQL vs. NoSQL. Here you can also look up the differences between RDBMS and Document Databases. 

https://phoenixnap.com/kb/sql-vs-nosql

While Amazon has its own DocumentDB, MongoDB is used in a lot of places (Forbes, Toyota, etc) and Amazon's DocumentDB is compatible with MongoDB. 

Of course, Microsoft's SQL Server is a mature product and it can even handle BigData using Polybase virtualization. You can query data from any SQL Server, Oracle, Teradata, MongoDB, and other data sources using external tables. 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/big-data-cluster/big-data-options?view=sql-server-ver16

Connectivity to HDFS now uses published REST APIs instead of the Java Hadoop client. all you need to do is to configure connectors while configuring the AZURE Storage.

Here is a schematic from Microsoft's documentation of BigData storage and processing in the Microsoft platform.


Also, storing data in itself is not sufficient and Microsoft has POWER BI which also visualization of data from a huge number of database products. It is hard to beat Microsoft at this game.

I am somewhat slanted towards Microsoft due to my association with Microsoft database products for a long time. I have not received any remuneration from Microsoft for this post.

Friday, January 24, 2020

Installing SQL Server Management Studio v 18.4

Since SQL Server 2016, SQL Server Management is not installed when you install SQL Server. It will be a separate install.

You can download the latest SQL Server Management Studio v18.4 (the most recent version) from here:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms?view=sql-server-ver15



It is backward compatible with the earlier versions.

Double click the downloaded file (SQL2019-SSEI-Dev.exe) to begin the installation.


 Click Install. It takes a little while and gets installed easily.


 You should see this in your Windows Display of programs.


These programs get added to your Control Panel.

When you launch the SQL Server Management Studio you may get this display. Since there was an existing SSMS v 17.x was present, this display came up. 


The user settings from v17 were imported. You could also import later after a default installation.


The SQL Server Management Studio opens displaying the Object Browser. It assumes Windows Authentication with the current user as server administrator.

The version information is as seen in the following screen:



Friday, January 17, 2020

PowerShell cmdlets version that works with (compatible) SQL Server 2019

PowerShell is in continuous development mode. New challenges require updating of software to accommodate the changes. This is the nature of such things. PowerShell cmdlets also follow this natural course and we have many versions.

I had an older version, and when I tried to launch contextually from SSMS v 8.4, I got this response:


In order to get the version you want, you may access this link:

SQL Server with PowerShell

Here is a list from the above site:





Scripting Options in SQL Server Management Studio v 18.4


The Scripting options can be accessed from Tools: Options in the SQL Server Management Studio v18.4.



In the Options window drill-down on SQL Server Object Explorer | Scripting as shown.

 Expand the node, General scripting options to display the following:


 Expand the node, Object scripting options to display the following:


 Expand the node, Table and view options to display the following:

 Expand the node, Version options to display the following:

In each version of SSMS, the Options window is slightly different or arranged differently.

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

Get head start in Basic SQL at PCATT

A new session is going to start soon. Sign-up here.


Microsoft SQL Azure Database: SQL Server in Microsoft Cloud
Windows PowerShell for SQL Server


My sincere thanks and best wishes to my students in the previous meets of this course.

I am not paying this invoice. I am disregarding it, becuase....

 I am not paying this invoice because MICROSOFT has not provided me with a satisfactory way to access my account since June of this year des...